Weird Tech: joke's on you with latest iPhone

The week's strangest stories, all in one place

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If you've recently shelled out for a 3G iPhone, or simply fancy a new app, here's one for you: the Dark Knight application. A marketing tool for the movie, it allows you to 'jokerise' yourself in a few swift moves. For a frightening new profile, merely start up the app, take a photo of yourself (using the camera if you're on an iPhone, or a saved picture if you're using an iPod touch) and add Joker elements to your face. Time well spent indeed.

Florist fired after death threat email

In other bizarre news this week, an employee of 1-800-Flowers.com – a US online floral delivery service – has been given the sack after allegedly emailing death threats to an evolutionist scientist. A self-described 'rabid new atheist', Paul Myers received several hostile messages following a controversial blog post on 8 July.

Melanie Kroll's email gave Myers until the first of the month to resign from his post as professor of biology at Minnesota University 'For the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in'. She has since denied writing the email, which was sent from her account, but was fired following an internal investigation.

'Holy Spirit luvs u'

Question: what does the Pope have in common with a school in Bedford? Answer: both have turned to text messages to reach the younger generation. While Pope Benedict XVI recently embraced the mobile phone tech to spread a different message from the gospel each day to young people attending celebrations in Australia, Newnham Middle School is using it to tackle truants. The school is to purchase Truancycall, an automated system that will alert parents by text and email if their children fail to arrive at school.

Weird Tech Awards

The English Curiosa Railroad Pocket Watch Gun ran away with this week's weird-all-in-one award. However, concept-of-the-week easily went to the USB-powered Heat Me stirrer. Serving as both a stirrer and a liquid-heating device, the metal coil on the end heats up when you plug it into your USB drive. So small, and yet so useful (if you don't sit next to the microwave). If this ever makes it to manufacture, cold coffee will be a thing of the past.

News in brief

NASA has hit a snag in the testing of its new toilets, thanks to a shortage of urine. Meanwhile, police in the US have started to leave the latest hi-tech technology inside cars to bait thieves, in a new scheme to help tackle car crime. And the UK's first electric taxi, the E7, is to make its debut at the upcoming British International Motor Show.

And finally…

When a patient complained of chest pains, the last thing doctors expected to find was a set of dentures lodged in his lungs. Surgeons removed them, the Metro reported on Thursday, and told 64-year-old Qin Yuan that his snoring had sucked them down his throat. "I will be taking them out before going to bed from now on," he said.